Clear Lake crackdown on drunken boaters

<p>Boaters who consume alcohol while recreating on Clear Lake beware. Lake County is conducting its first-ever sobriety checkpoint on the lake today Saturday.</p><p>“The desire is to put the message out it’s not good to drink and boat,” said Lake County Sheriff’s Marine Patrol Deputy Dane Hayward.</p><p>He said the decision to conduct a checkpoint is unrelated to a 2006 fatal boating crash on Clear Lake that involved a Lake County chief deputy’s speed boat and a sailboat. But it coincides with the trial of the man charged with boating under the influence and causing the death of a passenger on the sailboat.</p><p>Carmichael resident Bismarck Dinius was at the tiller of the sailboat when the speed boat crashed into it, killing Willows resident Lynn Thornton, 51, a passenger on the sailboat.</p><p>Dinius is charged with causing the crash because his blood alcohol level was .12 several hours after the accident and he was steering the boat without running lights on that moonless night, according to the prosecution.</p><p>The case has drawn widespread criticism from boaters who believe the speedboats driver, Lake County Chief Deputy Russell Perdock, should have been criminally charged.</p><p>The sobriety checkpoint on Clear Lake comes midway in the trial.</p><p>Hayward said the marine patrol has been gearing up for a checkpoint for several years by assisting Sacramento County with its BUI checkpoints. The Lake County team, which grows from two to seven members in the summer, has arrested five people this year on suspicion of boating under the influence, he said.</p><p>The marine patrol officers also tow disabled boats to safety and enforce marine laws.</p><p>The boating checkpoint will be conducted from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. between Buckingham Point and Anderson Island, said Lake County Sheriff’s Capt. James Bauman.</p><p>Sutter and Sacramento counties sheriff’s authorities, the California Highway Patrol and state Fish and Game officials will participate, Bauman said.</p>